T-Minus 9 Months and Counting
by ReidsFanGirl18
Summary: A Sequel to "You Have that Effect on Me"- Nearly a year has passed since Spencer and Maeve's wedding... now yet another life changing journey is about to begin for the young couple, that of parenthood...
1. Chapter 1: The Blue Line

A total of three years had passed since Spencer first contacted Maeve, over two years had passed since they first laid eyes on each other face to face. Since then they had each abandoned their tiny apartments and moved together into a small three bedroom house, and they'd been married for almost a year now. The wedding had been relatively small, including only their close extended families and friends.

Spencer was currently on an away case, expecting to come home sometime the next day, meanwhile Maeve was home alone, in the master bathroom, staring into the white porcelain sink bowl at a small blue line, the meaning of which, without a doubt, was about to change their lives forever. She tapped her fingers rhythmically on the cool, gray, white, and black, speckled granite countertop as she wondered how she possibly could have not realized it earlier. She'd been nauseous off and on for nearly two weeks by now, she'd chalked it up to leftovers gone bad and weird takeout food, still she'd decided to test herself anyway and sure enough… she was pregnant…

They hadn't really been trying so much as they had stopped trying not to… She now had to find a way to tell Spencer the news, that they were going to be parents roughly eight to nine months from now… This was a topic they'd discussed on their honeymoon ten months earlier and, as it was with so many things, their views were essentially the same. They would welcome parenthood if or when it came but it wasn't a huge priority on their shared to-do list. Even though it was bound to eat at her not to tell him immediately, she'd have to wait until he got home, this was not something you told your husband over the phone.

She tried to picture how he'd react, she could see it in her mind, surprise, elation, nervousness, excitement, then more nervousness… a flow of emotion run across his face. Maeve could see it in her mind as clearly as if it were happening, as if he was already standing right there in front of her. She knew that once this played out, for the next nine months she'd witness a tug of war play out just below the surface. When they'd decided to take the path of wait and see, his vote not to try aggressively, as some couples did, had not been based solely of desire. He would want this child, even more than she did. But two aspects of his personality had kept him from expressing aloud, what she'd seen written all over his face that night. His own father had abandoned him when he was nine and never spoken to or contacted him until Spencer had sought him out himself, almost eighteen years later, what kind of father would he be, having had such a terrible example? Maeve knew the answer to that… a great one… and somewhere deep within him, he would know it too.

So how would she tell him? That was the question…


	2. Chapter 2: Telling Him

When Reid came home the next night, he came home to find an infant sized, candy corn Halloween costume, draped over his brown leather armchair. He registered that it was out of the ordinary, but having been exhausted far beyond the point of curiosity, he simply dropped his go-bag at the side of the chair and went upstairs looking for Maeve.

"Maeve! I'm home…" he called out. He knew she was too, her car had been in the driveway. Yet the house was quiet, the TV wasn't tuned to a scientific documentary, the radio was silent, there were no footsteps coming from the second floor. "Maeve? Where are you?" he asked.

"Up here!" he heard her call out from the master bedroom.

He only saw her for a split second before he felt her wrap her arms around him.

"Welcome home," she said.

"Thanks" he replied. He could tell that something had changed. There was something different in her affect, the look in her eye… something was up… yet jet lag kept him from deciphering exactly what. Contrary to what most people might believe…he was utterly awful at reading people…the natural ability for which, was almost completely lost on him. It was only his quick mind and vast knowledge of psychology and sociology that served to counteract this; and right now he just didn't have the energy to filter her unusual behavior through his computer-like brain.

"How was New Mexico…?"

"We managed to save eight victims…" he told her. He had no desire to go into what the Unsub had done to the other twelve victims that they hadn't managed to save, that was something that actually made him wish he _didn't _have an eidetic memory.

"Good" she said, acutely aware that he didn't want to go into too much detail about this one, the look of sheer exhaustion clearly written all over his face told her that.

"What about you? Did anything interesting happen around here while I was gone?"

It was her first chance to tell him, but she hesitated. It was almost midnight now, and he seemed so tired. When it came down to it, so was she…

"Maeve…" He said. "I know there's something, there has to be. I can't explain it but you're holding something back. What is it?"

"Well…Spencer…"

"Maeve…?"

"We can talk about it in the morning…" She said.

"Maeve, are you sure?"

"Yeah…it can wait. We're both tired, let's get some sleep…"

"Ok…" he replied in agreement.

_In his dream that night, Spencer was back in New Mexico. The Unsub had another victim, a girl…two years old just like the others. He didn't understand how he knew that, he simply knew. He had to get her out. He just had to. _

_He and the team infiltrated the secondary location, which looked exactly like the real one. Just like in the actual case, they found the Unsub holding the child crudely with a razor blade to her neck. Only this child wasn't one of the actual victims. She had hair just like his, and her eyes were a bluish green…they…they were Maeve's… _

_"Daddy!" the little girl cried. "Daddy! Daddy help me!" _

_Daddy? Why was she calling him Daddy? It didn't make any sense…he didn't have kids… Yet there was something about her…he knew, the same way he knew that she was down there in the first place, that she was his daughter. He shot the Unsub through the head and caught the little girl in his arms as her captor's arms gave out. It tortured him to listen to her crying, to see the fear in her eyes, which were the spitting image of Maeve's. _

_"It's ok…it's ok Sweetie…" he said, rocking her gently as she clinged to him with her face buried against his shoulder. _

_"Daddy…" _

_"It's alright, you're safe now… It's ok, I'm here…you're ok, Daddy's here, Daddy's got you…"_

Spencer woke up the next morning with Maeve in his arms. His eyes shot open as he lifted his head to look around the room. Everything seemed normal, the same light brown walls with white trim… the same dark oak dresser with a mirror framed to match against the wall next to the door. It was bright, even without the light on, bright, and warm, and safe. He wasn't in a dark basement facing down a pedophile… he was home, in his own house, with the love of his life still asleep in his arms. He looked over at the clock on the bedside table…it was already eight-thirty. Thank goodness Hotch had given everyone a day off for once or he'd be late already. But he wasn't late, and for right now he was perfectly content to stay right where he was.

Suddenly Maeve stirred, she snuggled against him and opened her eyes.

"Morning…" he said.

"Good morning Honey…" she replied, smiling back at him.

"So…now are you going to tell me what's going on…? He asked, giving her a pleading look.

"What do you think is going on?" she asked, sitting up on her knees on the bed.

"My guess is it must have something to do with the miniature Halloween costume downstairs…"

"Correct…we might be needing that-"

"For who? We don't know any kids that will fit into it… it's _way _too small for Henry and Jack…"

"No…not for them…not even this year…we'll need it for next year…" She explained. She was beaming now.

"I'm not following…"

"I wanna show you something…get up…"

He did…

She grabbed his arm and he allowed her to lead him into the bathroom; where the positive pregnancy test was still sitting in the bottom of the sink bowl.

"What…? This…this is you…?" he asked, his tone and expression was pure shock.

"Yeah, that's me, it's us! We're gonna be parents Spencer!" She exclaimed happily, hugging him tightly. There it was, the very flow of emotion she'd anticipated in her head, was dancing across his face… she waited, watching intently to see which reaction won out as dominant until after the longest thirty seconds of her life, his expression settled on joy.

"Wow…just wow…"


	3. Chapter 3: The Planning Begins

"I was surprised too…"

"H-how long have you known?" Spencer asked nervously.

"I just found out for sure the day before yesterday…I didn't want to tell you over the phone…I wanted to wait until you were here with me…"

He smiled.

"You know what this means right? We should start making plans to turn one of the spare bedrooms into a nursery…and there's something else you and I need to talk about…" She said, but Spencer wasn't listening anymore.

He was too busy stalking around the house like a whirlwind, reading the ingredients on the packaging of just about every household chemical, cleaner, and medication they owned, if it contained anything that could hurt Maeve or the baby before or after he or she was born, he threw it into a black garbage bag. When he was done, there wasn't much left in terms of cleaning supplies.

"What…are you doing?" She asked.

"I'm gathering up all the teratogens and getting them out of this house…"

"OK, did you hear what I said earlier…?"

"Which part? That we needed to start planning things out or that there's something else you want to discuss?"

"Either…both…apparently you did hear both… We need to deal with the second part first…"

Sensing that it was something important, he stopped what he was doing and turned to face her.

"What is it…?"

"Actually it has to do with what you're doing right now… I can't be in my lab… not until the baby comes, probably not even while I'm nursing… there's literally at least a hundred different substances in there that could cause anything from congenital heart defects to missing organs to immune deficiency to limb hypoplasia and after birth could put them at risk for developmental problems… I can't be in there… So we have to decide where I _will _be for the next probably at least two years…"

"As in…?"

"As in do I just take extended maternity leave as of now? Or do I keep working, just in a different capacity? I could work down in the hospital or I could teach the non-lab genetics and biology classes as a professor…or maybe even both…but we have to decide before Monday so I can tell my department head before I'm expected in the lab…"

"What do you want to do?" He asked her.

"Honestly, if I'm stuck at home for eight to nine months I think I'll lose it… So think I'll work in the hospital until the semester ends in a month, then I'll teach the next two terms and still be available to the hospital when they need me…"

"That sounds like a plan to me…I just have one question…"

"Which would be…?"

"Are you sure there aren't any teratogens in the hospital?" He said, in that serious and yet subdued tone of his that usually signaled worry.

"Well I wouldn't say none… but not the kind that can be harmful just by incidental exposure…it'll be fine…"

"Are you sure…?" he asked.

"Yes."

"You're absolutely certain…?"

"Yes, Spencer…what are you going to do…follow me around puppy guarding me for nine months?"

"No…" he replied, but by the way he said it she could tell that in all honesty he didn't actually think that was such a bad idea. This was going to be a long nine months.

By the end of the day, he had just about the whole place childproofed to the point where it was about as safe as a much cleaner version of the bouncy play-lands that were sometimes found inside fast food restaurants. Soft covers were on every single sharp edged table and counter in the house, all unused outlets had little, plastic covers on them, and he'd wrapped thick layers of soft foam around chair and table legs and tied it in place with twine.

"You do know that we have about eight and a half months to get all that done right?"

"Why wait? With my work schedule I need to start getting this stuff done while we have the time. Speaking of which…how do we want to do the nursery? Do we do it neutral and wait until he/she is born? Or do we find out beforehand if it's a boy or a girl and decorate accordingly?"

"Well considering that short of a DNA test we can't know for at least another couple of months…"

He eyed her with a pleading look.

"Ok, we can start picking out the basic furniture this weekend, we'll find out at the four month mark and then we can finish decorating…" she told him.

"Alright…" he said, then he took a tape-measure out of the garage and set about measuring the spare room nearest to where he and Maeve slept. Then, on a few sheets of graph paper he drew out maps of several different possible layouts of how much space they could afford to let a given item take up and where to place it. Once he was satisfied that he'd chosen their most sensible option, he put it up on the fridge where either of them could find it easily.


End file.
